Indeed, like a giant oar-bug, more or less helplessly carried by the current that it rides, he spun slowly about in the maelstrom of the gathering tide before he could escape past the portal and head for the inlet below. He soon discovered that to continue far in this fatiguing attitude would abominably strain his neck, if not his entire body. Not without considerable difficulty, in balancing the craft, he effected a change of position, and knelt upon the supports. The waves washed up about his knees and feet, but of this he was practically oblivious. Assisted now by the current, and with eyes intent on the darkened shore, beyond the uprise of the cliff, he propelled himself much farther out than formerly, with the purpose of avoiding the possible vigilance of Dyaks on the beach. The night was not exceedingly dark, so brilliant was the light from the stars. Once the region of smoke was left behind, the blurred and blended features of the island were sufficiently well revealed for his purposes, since he knew its every silhouette as well as the contours of the coast. He had rowed and drifted, perhaps, half the distance essential to land at the estuary mouth, when the sound of voices, floated out from the shore, abruptly halted his movements. The Dyaks were there. Either motion or any unusual disturbance would suffice to betray his presence off the land. And now, as if every fate had become malignant, the current drifted him inward, where he knew he should keep well away. At the risk of exciting curiosity, if nothing more, he dipped his paddles, with a slow and silent expenditure of strength, and swept the float powerfully outward again, till the shore seemed a part with the sea. For a time that seemed interminable he hung about that outer stretch, awaiting a further sound of the voices. They did not come. Once more at last he paddled silently inward, finally worming, as before, to a prostrate position on the raft. The chant of the head-hunters came again, as if from the depths of the jungle. "Now, if ever!" muttered Grenville, half aloud, and impelled by a new and reckless desperation, increased by his thirst and his impotent rage at the creatures still feeding the fumes that Elaine could not avoid, he sent his craft swiftly landward, thankful, at least, for the mild disturbance of breaking ripples on the shore that would drown what slight noises he might make. Tempted to moor his float outside the estuary, he readily agreed it might thereby lead to his discovery, and must, as a matter of fact, be completely concealed in the shadows of the pool. Excited now by the possibility that his catamaran, with the oars and rowlocks, might still remain in its former harbor, he was doomed to prompt disappointment on gaining the estuary basin. There was nothing whatsoever in the place.